Attacks on the Press 2009: Honduras

Key Statistic
22: Days that Radio Globo and Canal 36 were off the air due to government censorship.

The June coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, along with the bitter stalemate that ensued, damaged press freedom in Honduras and heightened partisan divisions in the news media. An interim government cracked down on news coverage and withstood intense international pressure until a scheduled November presidential election brought Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, a conservative businessman, to office. As Lobo pledged reconciliation, Zelaya decried the vote as tainted.

The election divided the
regional and international community. The United States, which initially sought
to reverse the coup, ultimately backed the vote as credible, as did several
other nations. Venezuela, whose leader, Hugo Chávez, was a strong Zelaya
supporter, refused to recognize the election, joining regional powers Brazil
and Argentina in dismissing the vote as tainted. International electoral groups
declined to monitor the vote, The
Washington Post noted, because of the
political conflict and irregularities such as the silencing of pro-Zelaya
media.

The political crisis began
June 28 when Zelaya—who was pursuing a controversial proposal to eliminate
presidential term limits—was arrested by the army and put on a plane to Costa
Rica. As veteran congressional leader Roberto Micheletti was sworn in as
interim president, security forces closed local broadcasters, blocked
transmission of international networks, and briefly detained
reporters, CPJ research showed.

A day after the coup,
armed soldiers arrested five foreign correspondents and two support workers
inside their hotel in the capital, Tegucigalpa. Adriana Sivori, a reporter
for the Venezuelan government-backed regional network Telesur, her producer
María José Díaz, and her cameraman Larry Sánchez were detained, along with
Nicolás García and Esteban Felix, a video journalist and photographer reporting
for The Associated Press, and their two unidentified assistants. All of them
were released a short time later, according to CPJ interviews. Cable television
transmissions were blocked intermittently during the 48 hours after the coup,
interrupting coverage from CNN and Telesur. By using law enforcement to
restrict news coverage immediately after the coup, the de facto government
created an information vacuum that kept many Hondurans unaware of what was
happening in their own country.

Press freedom conditions
suffered further blows as supporters of both sides launched attacks on the
press. The interim government took aim at pro-Zelaya outlets: Privately owned
Radio Globo and television station Canal 36, both of which were critical of the
interim government, were forced off the air several times. The longest
interruption began September 28, when security forces raided their offices and
confiscated equipment. The two outlets were taken off the air under the
provisions of a government decree announced that same day. The decree,
which suspended constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties, appeared to be
aimed at suppressing turnout for a Zelaya rally planned that day in Tegucigalpa,
but it was also used to justify media raids. Article 4 of the decree authorized
the National Telecommunications Commission to suspend broadcasters for
“statements that attack peace and the public order, or which offend the human
dignity of public officials, or attack the law.” Both news outlets were allowed
to return to the air on October 20.

Reporters working for the
mainstream press, most of which were aligned with the caretaker administration,
also reported harassment and attacks. In August, unidentified assailants hurled
at least three homemade explosive devices at the offices of El Heraldo, the Tegucigalpa-based national daily viewed as supportive of
Micheletti, according to press reports. The bombs exploded near the paper’s
main entrances but caused no injuries and only minor damage. Rosángela Soto, a
reporter and TV host with the pro-coup media group Televicentro, told CPJ that
her colleagues had been beaten and threatenedby Zelaya militants,
deterring them from covering demonstrations supporting the ousted president. On
November 4, assailants hurled an explosive device at the Tegucigalpa offices of
Radio HRN, a station seen as supportive of the caretaker administration. Two
HRN employees were injured.

Honduran reporters and
advocates said that during the tense political standoff most TV stations
covered protests favoring Micheletti, while ignoring those supporting Zelaya.
Reports from radio outlets, except a few pro-Zelaya stations, were more
balanced but still delivered more information on the interim government.

Arturo Wallace Salinas,
who covers Central America for the BBC, told CPJ that the Honduran media’s
performance “resembled what happened in Venezuela [in 2002], ignoring
facts or only broadcasting the views of the new officials.” When Venezuela’s Chávez
was briefly ousted in 2002, prominent broadcasters were widely accused of
slanting coverage in favor of the coup leaders. (Chávez also accused them of
plotting the coup, an assertion they denied.)

Alexis Quiroz, executive
director of the Committee for Freedom of Expression (C-Libre), a Honduran press
freedom group, said slanted coverage could be seen in Zelaya’s first,
unsuccessful attempt to return to Honduras. After the Honduran military blocked
the airport’s runway to prevent Zelaya’s flight from landing, soldiers opened
fire on his supporters, leaving at least two dead and dozens injured. Most TV
stations, Quiroz said, ignored the news and aired an official, interim
government event instead.

In August, Zelaya accused
several media owners of planning the coup. He named two former
presidents—Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé, owner of the daily La Tribuna, and Ricardo Maduro, a principal in Radio Cadena Voces—along withJosé Rafael Ferrari, owner of the Televicentro and Emisoras Unidas
groups, and Jorge Canahuati Llarach, a principal in the dailies El Heraldo and La Prensa. But Zelaya provided no evidence of any direct
involvement in the takeover.

Tensions
further escalated after Zelaya secretly returned from exile on September
21 and sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy. Zelaya’s return created a
nervous standoff as he demanded to retake the presidency and Micheletti
threatened him with arrest if he set foot outside the embassy. After intensive
international negotiations, the interim government agreed to allow Zelaya to
return to office after the November election so he could serve out the
remaining two months of his term. Under the deal, the presidential vote would
be recognized by both sides, and neither Zelaya nor Micheletti would be
candidates. But the agreement soon fell apart: Zelaya urged his supporters to
boycott the election, and he later alleged fraud in the balloting. Congress, in
turn, voted in December to block Zelaya’s reinstatement.

Throughout, the political
dispute was echoed in media advertising. As part of a campaign intended to
damage Zelaya’s reputation, the interim government produced a number of
television ads alleging that the ousted president had stolen millions from the
Central Bank. On the other side, analysts noted, Zelaya persuaded media allies
such as Radio Globo and Canal 36 to air his unusual, unsubstantiated
allegations that Israeli commandos had been hired to murder him.

Two reporters were killed
in unclear circumstances. Rafael Munguía Ortiz, a correspondent for Radio Cadena
Voces, was killed in a drive-by shooting in the northwestern town of San Pedro
Sula in March, according to news reports. In July, an unidentified assailant
shot broadcast and newspaper reporter Gabriel Fino Noriega as he was leaving
radio station Estelar in the northern town of San Juan Pueblo, police told CPJ.
No arrests were reported in either case. CPJ was investigating the deaths to
determine whether they were work-related.